Karen Armand

Date: January 2013

Dr. Karen Armand, Founder of West Seattle Yoga & Psychotherapy has over a decade of experience as a counselor & Yoga Therapist. She has a PhD in transpersonal psychology, holds a Washington state license in Mental Health Counseling and is a registered Yoga therapist. Karen believes that spiritual practice is an important adjunct to psychotherapeutic work. She is presently engaged in further study of the human psyche through the psychoanalytic perspective.

The Spice Mistress is honoured to welcome Karen Armand as the focus of this month’s Pancha Q.

For 34 years, Karen has been a student and practitioner of Yoga and Zen Buddhism. Her research interests include breath work and the mechanisms of psychological integration as seen through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology. She has also been a yoga instructor over the past decade working with a culturally diverse student base. To date, her psychotherapeutic work includes collaborating with clients to meet the challenges of relationship to Self (i.e. addiction), relationship with others, life transitions (including grief and forgiveness work), and anxiety/depression.

1. How do you begin your day?

Karen: Ideally I begin my day by acknowledging that today is all I have and that nothing is worth more than this day.

2. What’s one piece of life changing health advice you can share with others?

Karen: “Developing your qualities of respect and love, and cultivating the goodness of your own Heart allows humility to come forth. This must be developed before one can be a Yogi or a healer.” (M. Stiles, 2007)

3. What’s one thing that gives you hope for the future?

Karen: What gives me hope for the future is that the practices of Yoga, including Ayurvedic practices, are becoming wide spread and accepted.

4. Any lifestyle ‘Crimes against Wisdom’ (Prajnaparadha) that challenge you?

Karen: I really wish we could all figure out how to slow down, how to just BE more than do, do, do.

5. A moment of beauty that inspired you today?

Karen: Today I had the honor to observe a Sea Lion sitting on a floating dock. He was so innocently beautiful and at the same time majestically free.